Insure the Box

...My "baby" unfortunately failed his test a couple of weeks back - but is back in the saddle ready to take his test again...

I own the car which he drives - does anyone know the most cost effective solution to getting him insurance on this..

He has mentioned "Insure the Box" what is this... if it means that I need to "sign over" the car that is not a problem as there is another vehicle that I can drive in the household..

Anyone know the best course of action to take ???

A little bit of me says "pass your test in the spring" (without the ice/fog/snow) but I was we same when he started to climb trees.. nervous over-protective Mum of a first and only child!!!! I don't have a replacement...

After picking myself up of the floor at the quotes for putting ds on my insurance, I worked out that by far the cheapest way to insure him was for him to buy his own car, which he did, a £2k Corsa, and I paid the insurance which was about £1300 through iKube.

He has a spybox fitted which prevents him driving between 11pm and 5am and monitors his speed.

The great thing about iKube is that when he passed his test the premium didn't increase.

OP DS1 17 in a few weeks and desperate for the freedom that driving would give him as we live in the sticks. I have an old car which I have sort of kept on because of a vague idea that the boys could have it (DS2 is 15). I use it a lot but could easily use the other car.I had thought that by letting him have use of it, say,a few times a week, he would still be only a second driver on my policy but would gain a bit of experience.mumblechum your post make me think I would be better off giving him the car. I've heard of the spybox and like the idea of the curfew for a novice driver.My insurance is due just before DS is 17 so I was planning to start research.

The only disadvantage to the fact that ds is now driving himself around is that we don't speak to each other; the taxiing around used to be our main chat time . He loves the freedom, though, we're also in the sticks, so he's very independent now, can drive himself to school, sports etc.

The late night thing is a bit of a bugger, I admit. DS tends to drive to the local big town for a night out, leave his car in the multistorey and share a cab home with another couple of lads, or often he'll sleep at one of his friends' houses and drive home in the morning.

I actually think the 11pm curfew is a good idea, statistically teenage boys do tend to have accidents late at night.

Hello! Ive got to declare a cross over here as Im a mum and use netmums normally - but I also actually work in this industry and so know a lot about these black boxes. Ill stick to the facts and hopefully that will be helpful.

Premiums for young people can be outrageously high and fitting a black box to a car can be a way to save a lot of money for them. These boxes are sometimes called spy in the car or black box  but the buzz word is Telematics and therefore when youre googling around thats a good one to use because youll find lots of reviews and information about it easily. As a starter, the aggregators (like moneysupermarket, gocompare or confused) have good, unbiased reviews, so you might like to check them out.

Telematics helps young people prove they drive more sensibly than some of their peers, can help teach them how to drive better and can reduce fraud  thats why the prices are better. Its a fairly new development in insurance, but uptake is fast and it's no longer unusual.

There are a few different Telematics providers out there, but their products do come with very different conditions. Eg The night time curfew you are talking about is something which some providers have (giving costly penalties if you drive at night), but this is not the same for all ( insurethebox dont). Some products change the price depending on how you drive  judge each one separately.

As mentioned above, renewal prices are influenced by how well the customer drives, which means that young people can prove they are not a boy racer and earn a price which reflects that. The insurance companies are obviously very motivated to attract drivers they know are better than the norm. You could think of this a little bit like a fast No Claims Bonus  the young people are quickly proving they are a better risk. (This varies between the telematics companies, so have a look at what they say)

For insurethebox specifically:

Insurethebox are the biggest telematics provider in the UK. When you buy a policy it comes with a telematics box fitted to the car included in the price. The policy is limited mileage  that means the standard product offers 6000 or 8000 miles, and then you can buy top-up miles if you drive more than that in a year. You also earn Bonus Miles every month if you drive well, and this comes with feedback to an online portal which would help your DS know how to improve his driving (night time driving is one of the things that can affect bonus miles).

Insurethebox also has their Accident Alert service  if the box detects an impact to the car the call centre staff know immediately. They call the policyholders phone to offer assistance or even call the emergency services directly if they think the situation is serious (eg very high impact, the car has flipped, its late at night on a country road etc). The box can also be used to prove what happened around a crash which helps if the other party has a different version of the truth.

Theres a video on the homepage of insurethebox website which is an easy way to get more of an explanation.

On top of all the above, I'd recommend anyone out there who has a daughter thinking about insurance to check out the changes the EU are bringing to car insurance in December. It is going to become illegal to charge different amounts for girls and boys and girls' car insurance is likely to go up a LOT. Research in advance! (Google "EU Gender Directive/Ruling")

I will investigate further "Insure The Box" - we live in a rural location with 2 buses a day (last service at 6.00 pm) and thus all the systems which prevent driving after 11.00pm would not help very much.

Will spend some time running some comparison checks and be back later to report my findings...

If you want to insure DD/DS to drive your own or DP's car then insuring with Elephant/Admiral might be a good route.

We paid a basic c300 per vehicle (Citroen Xantia and Berlingo) for both of us, mid fifties professionals, and student DD who passed test in 2010 to drive either car on mirror policies. Adding DS as a learner for Berlingo only added £250 and a few further quid extra once he passed his test last month.

Wow, that sounds good! Annoyingly our insurance is not due for renewal until August - stupidly I didn't think of it when I renewed. I think we will have to look at our own car first if it can be done at any reasonable price.

My DP passed his test last year - at 21. He got his first years insurance through Insure the Box. It worked well for us. There were no restrictions on time of day traveled, although they do reward you with bonus miles if you avoid the 'high risk' times. DP usually got the full bonus miles (100) each month.

He paid £1500 for the years insurance driving a 1.4 Skoda Fabia in the end (2001) although a Corsa was cheaper for him to insure (they were the cheapest we found in our price range) we needed something a little larger for the family. Other insurers quoted well in excess of £3000 for the same car. Even with the cars that came back slightly cheaper to insure with Insure the Box were still at least £3000 for the year with other insurers.

This year he has 1 years no claims, and is 22. His renewal was around £1100. He ended up going with Hastings, who are doing a similar scheme - with the tracker in situ. They offered 10000 miles for a quote of £900. So we went with that. The cheapest standard insurance was around £1800.

It has meant the difference for us between him being able to afford to drive, or not. For us as a family, it was important. So the tracker and limited mileage policy has been a fair trade off. I was glad of the opportunity! And for DP to show he isn't some boy racer, but a man with a family and responsibilities!

Don't know if anyone can answer, but the bit I don't understand about the tracker boxes, is, how do they know who is driving the car?It seems likely that when ds takes his test next year, he's not going to be able to afford to run his own car, but I'd be willing to let him drive himself to places in the evenings in my car. How does 'the box' know when I'm driving and when he's driving though ?

when ds passed the premiums were all min £2000pa (up from ~£160pa) and figuring how many taxi journeys he could make with the savings we didn't insure him. The a year later we checked around and bought insurance for £380pa including him and his 17yo sister + breakdown cover, protected no claims, legal etc etc.

I couldn't believe how much less it was. Apparently as he hasn't claimed for a year he must be a safe driver (actually, he's probably forgotten how, but ho hum...).

Anyway, if you can wait a year, then the premiums may be more sensible.

musicposy, it will only become expensive once your dd has passed. Insuring provisional drivers isn't usually too bad. You can't take out the full insurance until they have passed. I think there will be a lot of girls trying to pass their tests before the Dec deadline this year.

He didn't have any no claims as he's never had his own insurance policy. We were adding him to our policy which does have a no claims entitlement which is mine. For each named driver they ask what claims have been made in the last year. He won't be building up his own no claims record on my policy either, although if he later chooses to take out his own policy with the same company then they will give him the number of years no claim discount that he has been on our policy, but it isn't transferable. I should be clear that it is my car we are talking about and he is only a very occasional driver of it (he's away at university for most of the year for a start). This would not work for a dc who was the main user of a vehicle or it would be fronting.

With insure the box they don't know whose driving. So if I'm driving it assesses my driving as well , what they is the risk for that car . They also log things like type of roads being driven, time of day etc.

Not all telematics insurers stop you driving after a certain time eg co-op, hastings smart miles. Hastings smart miles is good as they acknowedge that sometimes you have to drive at night and so do not penalise you. However, if the car belongs to the parent and they are the main driver they will not be able to get the black box insurance, you can only get that if the young driver owns the cars. TBH, it is very confusing and you can spend a lot of time looking at the right policy for DS/DD. If you are going for telematics think about how they drive and when and how many miles they will drive in a year and choose the insurance provider accordingly so you don't get penalised and the policy costs rise over the year.

Since I posted a couple of weeks ago I've done some more research because my renewal came through. DS isn't 17 yet so no company will add him until after his birthday.My renewal with Lloyds was £180 for me and DH to drive my car. They wanted £1600 to include DS as a learner.I have gone in the end with Direct Line. £200 for me and DH increasing to £800 when DS goes on. I could have got it for less without protected NCD. No box involved.They have also told me that the premium won't go up if he passes his test during the year of the policy and they will give him "named driver" NCD if he eventually insures himself with them.I was talking to a friend who has just added her 3rd DC on his 17th birthday and she was also with Direct Line having found them the best for when she insured her older DCs.